What is really happening with Tottenham’s new stadium?

By Tony Attwood

Very occasionally I find myself reading a report in a paper or on the internet and think, “blimey, I wrote that.”

Of course I don’t mean that literally – it is quite a long time since I’ve seen anyone take my actual words and re-print them as their own (that was with Blake’s 7 – the old BBC TV series, and a few comments about the Copyright Act as it then was, put things straight.

But sometimes it goes the other way, and I read a story about an issue we’ve covered, and I find myself thinking, why don’t these people read Untold.

And that’s how it is over newspaper tales about the never-ending saga of Tottenham’s new ground.

There are lots of items published, but hardly ever do they pick up on what seem to me to be the two key issues:

a) where is the money coming from (because that makes a hell of a difference to what happens after the building)

b) what happened about the claims to building a ground where the fans are much closer to the pitch than at the Ems, because that claim could be a root cause of the delays and the latest issue about Tottenham having to move out.

Tottenham have made much fun of the Emirates in terms of distance from the pitch – but the Ems is built according to the current requirements of the Premier League. My guess is that Tottenham tried to argue that since this was not a new stadium but a re-development that they would be able to get around the current requirements. My guess is also that this ploy failed – and that this is why the original notion of building a stadium while football at WHL carried on has been abandoned.

These issues are never debated, either by Tottenham or in the press. But you can read commentaries in all sorts of places, and mostly they start along the lines that Tottenham are still “hopeful” of opening the full stadium in August 2017.

It was really quite suddenly that out popped the story that ooops, oh dear, sorry, didn’t realise it at the time, we can’t actually stay in the stadium during the final year in which one side of the old ground is rebuilt to make it a stand of the new ground, facing the other way.

Why did that story suddenly emerge? I wonder.

The notion that as a result Tottenham would go on tour for a year, playing home games thither and yon was not really picked up much by the press at first, although it did get some coverage, but now suddenly the free London evening paper, the Evening Standard, has done a piece announcing this as news.

They are repeating the same names of stadia as have been mentioned all along – the stadium the government lovingly donated to West Ham (the Olympic Stadium), Wembley with the top tier shut and the stadium in Milton Keynes (stadiummk) where the Arsenal Ladies’ played in the FA Cup Final this summer.

The Standard does add a couple more – Portman Road (Ipswich) and The Amex (Brighton, right by where I was a student many thousands of years ago).

Now you may recall (but the Standard doesn’t) that Arsenal played in the Champions League at Wembley for two seasons, and pretty much filled the place.

Arsenal played six games at Wembley between 30 September 1998 and 27 October 1999 with crowds of 73,000 plus for each game except one where 71227 turned up for the AIK match. (The full story of that era is here on the Arsenal History Society site).

In those days 73,455 was the capacity of Wembley taking into account Champions League requirements. but now it is officially 90,000. However that’s a bit too much for Tottenham. The word is they are going to close the top bit and play in a near half empty ground with around 50,000 inside.

But there are worries about the price of Wembley, so while the home games against Arsenal, Man U, Man C, Chelsea Liverpool and West Ham would be there, others would be at smaller grounds.

Arsenal of course did the Wembley gigs in order to prove to the bankers that they could indeed fill the Emirates – those two seasons proved it, as close as one comes to proving predictions. With Tottenham it is just a means of playing while getting the ground built.

Apparently there have been protests from season ticket holders, so the Standard suggests they would be given a year out if they didn’t want to go on tour.

Each time I have written about the new ground in The High Road (they don’t and never have played in White Hart Lane, which is a little meandering road that once housed the ground of Wood Green Town FC) I’ve raised also the money. As in, “where is it coming from?”

A few Tottenham fans who have contributed here have suggested that the money is sorted – and indeed the Standard takes up that view with, “The necessary funds to finance the new stadium are said to be in place” but that doesn’t tell us if it is money borrowed from the banks or money borrowed from the benefactor in the way that Chelsea and Man C operate.

That’s really a key issue, because it relates to the repayment. If the benefactor lends the money then there is probably no schedule of repayment. The club will be put up for sale, and that sale will bring the benefactor his money back. If the banks lend the money, then Tottenham are faced with the years of privation that Arsenal have just had, paying all their new income from season tickets and sponsors into a gigantic hole labelled “stadium cost”. And that would be harder for Tottenham than for Arsenal, because they would enter the phase without Champions League football, and so without the extra income that brings.

But benefactors are all just one step away from changing their minds, so they too can be problematic.

Their other problem is the purchasing of property in order to build the stadium. They need to be granted a Compulsory Purchase Order by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, one Eric Pickles.

Now Mr Pickles likes to take his time, but even by this government’s standards 15 months seems a rather excessive amount of time to wait for a CPO. The battle is with Archway Sheet Metal, who have the land Tottenham want. Archway want £25million to move out. Tottenham won’t pay.

So a compulsory purchase order it has to be, but even if Mr Pickles says yes to Tottenham, Archway would certainly appeal and it is that one single fact that makes 2017 look unlikely.

In the end it looks like Tottenham might have been better off and following Arsenal’s lead of moving to another site and selling their own. The only problem with that is that Tottenham’s so-called White Hart Lane ground isn’t worth as much as Highbury was, so that, as a source of money, is removed.

39 comments to What is really happening with Tottenham’s new stadium?

Your point about selling the club and thereby getting the ‘benefactors’ money back is the key one I think Tony. Everything that Spurs do (including sacking Harry) is to that end. And nothing seems to work.
No one will buy (or certainly pay the required price) if the stadium situation isn’t sorted and the stadiums long term ability to give payback seems to be pushed further and further into the future.
Spurs problem is twofold. Firstly they are run by short term speculators who get increasingly frustrated that they are being asked to take a long term view and, secondly, their neighbours (us) are exactly the opposite and have been proved to have got it right.
I have a feeling that Spurs are as big as they will ever be both on and off the pitch.

I always assumed that the reason the funding hasn’t been mentioned is because it is not actually there yet!

In other words, ENIC wanted to get the go-ahead and all planning permission sorted before selling the club with that added value to another rich benefactor from abroad.

It seems most logical to me; Joe Lewis is unlikely to want to fork out all that money himself and take the risks involved. Far easier to sell it on to someone else for a great profit. It makes business sense.

And it follows that the reason they have tried so hard financially to secure CL football recently is so that it is more attractive to buyers when they do sell. It increases the ROI.

ENIC have ENIC’s interests in mind, unsurprisingly. Not that it would be terrible for spurs if this happened, as they’d be another limitlessly funded club with a smiling sheikh at the helm. But finding that buyer can’t be easy.

But I don’t see any reason to feel smug about this as arsenal fans. Ultimately we’re in the same boat as all those mickey mouse clubs. The club doesn’t belong to us. We’re owned by a foreigner and we’re treated as consumers, ripped off to the hilt. The only difference is that we have seen the best football team in the country turn into a selling club when we could have gone on to dominate. It’s taken us back 20 years and now we’re rebuilding from scratch. If you want to believe all this sanctimony about doing things the right way and ‘pride’ in what arsenal have done then you’re being taken for a mug. It’s their success, not ours.

Another issue is s106 monies. Arsenal paid a fair chunk to invest in local transport, where as it seems Spurs have the opposite with grants to help them along. I wonder where that particular point stands.

True: the majority share holder in Arsenal FC PLC is an American. As far as it is known he doesn’t take money out off the club nor for that matter doesn’t put money into the club.

True: Football in England is corrupt with a definte and clear bias to clubs that play in the North West.

True: In building the Ems the visible cost of the EMS limited the clubs spending power. This was temporary.

True: The ‘invisible cost’ of not building the Ems and staying at Highbury would have limited the club’s ability to be amongst the best in in the UK, Europe and the World is not known but it would have been a permanent limitation.

True: Some of our best players up and left during the last nine years. They left for a number reasons not just the critics mantra ‘Arsenal are going no where’.

True: Under Arsene’s leadership, Arsenal both on the pitch and off the pitch have become a club admired and respected around the world.

True: No manager since Herbert Chapman has done more for English football and Arsenal than Arsene Wenger.

I am an Arsenal fan. I know my place. The team that plays on the pitch is Arsene’s selection not my selection, therefore not my team.

The stadium and everything that Arsenal have belongs to the club not me. I have nothing that belongs to Arsenal.

I chose to follow Arsenal when I was kid and my decision making was based on a very limited knowledge and understanding of the world around me at the time.

If you think nine years of only being 2nd, 3rd or 4th is failure, then try 1953 to 1971 and and have only the ‘Fairs cup’ to show for it.

Then 1971 to 1989 with only one FA Cup to show for it and a stadium that was more than showing its age.

Despite the long years without a league championship Arsenal had a history that the club could be proud of.

Thanks to Arsene and all who have supported him Arsenal has future that Arsenal will be proud of.

BWAHAHAHAHA, What CRAP. We have finally won a trophy the FA Cup the Players have won as a YOUNG team and now will know what it feels like to win TOGETHER and will have that final piece of the puzzle ‘the mentality to win’ and we are coming out of the woods taking WORLD CLASS Talents from teams. Özil the best no. 10 in the world even that loudmouth classless ratbag Mourinho that hates us says so, now we are following up being linked to the likes of Khedira and Sanchez…….and you say we are 20 years behind, BS. We are slowly building one hell of a team capable of winning EVERYTHING!! You Mix the likes of Özil with Sanchez and Ramsey you are looking at a devestating team. Wenger and the Arsenal board (even if people don’t agree because they are impatient and want glory right now) definitely know what they are doing.

Add to that the revenues now and partnerships we are getting, the increased EPL money we will be soon rivalling the likes of Bayern (if we are not already) for money coming in. Don’t believe me Emirates = 30m Puma = 30m = New EPL Revenue = 30-40m now add the newly added partners (coopertires, Pruhealth Vitality, Huawei, Jean Richard Watches, Gatorade and there is more in the pipeline)

forgot to mention also in my post as regards the extra revenue, remember BEFORE all of this extra revenue we were still bringing in around 250-275m a season, now we can quite happily add another 100m to that and we haven’t even scratched the surface with sponsors. We all admit we are far behind with Sponsoring in comparison to Manu, but Manu are now sponsored to the hilt with very little room for movement but our sponsoring and partnerships are only just really getting started!!

Yeah i know what you mean…..what i meant though is that Manu are sponsored to the hilt, they have sponsors for every kit imaginable everywhere you turn they have a sponsor. In that comparison we only have a couple of sponsors comparison to them and their main sponsor is paying ridiculous money £60m a season, but then again the person that sanctioned the deal was sacked for it. It was a really stupid thing for Chevrolet to do because they just got bailed out which obviously cost the tax payer money then they first thing they do is give £60m a season to Manu……….DUMB!!

George, your commentary would be of greater interest if you told us how you know about Archway. I made it clear I was following up on stuff in the Standard. Everything becomes rubbish if there is no source.

Have you seen this football blog report on Archway dating back to the end of March? According to it, it has cost Archway half a million pounds to fight this so far, and to be forced to move will likely bankrupt them.

Google points to the first link, which is a stub article pointing at the second. I’ll put them both up in case this is old news and you can delete it from moderation.

I had a very slight passing interest in the developments of their planned new stadium a few years ago, then I blinked and forgot about it until now. After reading this I feel completely appraised, an expert even because as usual Tony, Untold has done the research “So I don’t have to.” This is the main thing I love about the site, the quality of the writing being another. I can trust unquestionably what I read on Untold when Tony and Walter write. The guest writers who name call, who are often aggressive, who go on to treat the comments section like a personal Facebook page with their over frequent postings put me off returning as often as I would like.

By the time Tottenham have a new stadium I suspect we will have won many more trophies, seen players come and go and seen a new manager or two. ENIC have thrown a lot of money at that club and achieved nothing. I have no belief ENIC can achieve anything with a new stadium besides making the club a packaged product for somebody to buy … after they spend two decades paying off the debt while in the Championship.

I wasn’t complaining! I don’t mind supporting arsenal even if we’re not winning. That’s not what this is about. This is about why I should feel pleased or proud of what Arsenal have done, beyond just being a devoted fan who sticks up for the club. What is rational about celebrating how we’ve paid for the new stadium? I’m genuinely interested to know! Because I don’t feel it anymore. I did at the beginning, because I hated the way football was going and I hated abramovich and chelsea. It’s impressive, sure, but in hindsight I wonder what it has actually brought us. ‘Pride’? In what? That we paid for a new stadium with our own revenues? How is that a good in and of itself? How does that benefit us in the long run?

I’m just wondering. If you dispute what I’m saying then OK, but I’d be interested to hear why it is that arsenal fans are so proud of what arsenal have done. What does it give us?

I’ve stuck up for it long enough lol. I’ve had my fair share of playground back and forths with other fans bemoaning the likes of abramovich and what football has become, how we’re the shining example, doing it the right way etc. I’ve argued it all many times. But with some perspective now I really don’t see how it has benefitted us. Since the board decided to cash in and sell off their shares to people with no connection to the club at all, no better or worse than abramovich or mansour, I see all those arguments as completely hollow. We call our stadium ‘The Emirates’ and our owners don’t even come to the games. We pay top prices and our owners don’t really care whether we’re arsenal, tottenham or barnet. What’s the difference in the end?

There’s no ‘identity’. We’re not superior or doing it a better way. We’re in the same position as chelsea or man city, except we don’t have the free money! You look at chelsea’s revenues and they’re pretty close to ours. For a club with no history that’s saying something. They’re not half as beholden to abramovich as they once were. They don’t live or die by him anymore. That’s what buying stars and winning trophies has done for them. In a business sense at least, we are not better off. Whatever was right about what we did it certainly hasn’t given us a competitive advantage. We could have had a bigger turnover than man utd by now if we had had what chelsea had.

Don’t get me wrong though. It was and is a fantastic achievement on the part of everyone at arsenal to have remained competitive during this period. Especially when you consider the football backdrop with the billionnaires and the fact we’ve continually lost big player assets as a result. We’ve been competing against limitless funds and somehow our genius manager has managed to keep us at a good level while maximising our revenues.

But I don’t see the value in that as a fan anymore. It’s not better than having a rich bloke buy you a title. There’s nothing that differentiates us. We’re a brand and we’re owned by an american billionnaire and an uzbeki billionnaire. I have nothing against them personally, and I’m not accusing them of harming the club. But if you’re going to sell out (which the arsenal board members well and truly did) you might as well sell out to someone who is going to get involved and help out, try to make us grow as a team and as a club.

Anyway, I’m happy with where we are and I’ve even enjoyed the last few years supporting arsenal. Again, I’m not complaining or having a go at all. But I do take issue with the idea that we’re somehow morally superior or that we should be proud. I just don’t buy it anymore. Beyond being a reactionary arsenal fan defending his club against criticism, which I myself often am, I really don’t see the point. What we did isn’t better. But boy was it harder!

We could have had so much success on the pitch in this time. We could have established ourselves at the top table in europe on the pitch as well as financially. 10 years ago we had an absolutely outstanding squad. We could have had 6 or 7 titles, 3 or 4 Champions Leagues. All those titles that chelsea or man city or man utd bought could have been ours. And how much worse off would we really be now? Really I do wonder sometimes. And I think any sensible arsenal fan would too if he/she thought about it.

Chelsea’s revenue is NOT close to ours, it WAS close to ours but since all of our new deals they are quite far off. Secondly Chavski not Beholden to Abramovich LOLOLOLOLOLOL, If Abramovich left or wanted his money back they owe him close to 1 BILLION POUNDS. Please dont say that Abramovich wouldn’t want his money back and interest too. Billionaires don’t become billionaires by giving billions away as gifts, if suddenly the tide chances he WILL want his money back how will Chavski ever afford to pay that back whilst trying to stay competitive.

Thanks to oldgroover, we can see the CPO and seeking further, we find:

“The deal that Archway have on the table at the moment from ENIC is the relocation of the business to a block of land that ENIC own further down near the North Circular, with all costs covered plus planning expenses paid to build a new factory.”

and the clinching:

“BUT.
Archway would then have to fund the cost of building a new factory and all other associated building works costs, from scratch. This is a huge amount of money.”

Without bothering with the financials of Archway, I would suggest that ENIC are acting rather naughty!

Relocating Archway into a purpose-built factory, should be the minimum requirement for a reputable land deal?

These “facts” are supplied by Harry Hotspur, for those whose wish is for the source.

I must say that rarely have I come across a more contradictory and confusing set of comments on Untold.
After Tony’s post, I felt some sympathy for Spurs. After all, we shared their ground during WW2 and would doubtless have reciprocated since then, should circumstances have required it.
And then a rather tongue in cheek offering from Limpar’s Wand.
Which brought about epic responses.
I’m still trying to work out the ins and outs of the views expressed which, to an oldie, is not easy. Keep it simple folks. 😉

Lim pars Wand,
1. The club has never belonged to ‘us’ whatever that nebulous concept is as it has always been in fairly tight ownership. Unless you are from one of the former shareholding families.
2. Please explain how we could have dominated in a small stadium. We would not have increased revenue significantly and would simply have atrophied.
3. And the Russian and Oil money would still have come in and given the clubs an unfair advantage, your analysis is a bit weak I’m afraid. The game has changed and we had to change with it. Simply wishing it hadn’t is more than a little Canute like.

Ok I obviously haven’t made myself clear enough! Clock End Rider I’ll respond to you because you seem to be decent enough not to make personal barbs and address what I was saying, or trying to say at least.

My observation is simple:

If abramovich or mansour had bought us in 2004 then how much better off would we be now?

Imagine a billion pounds injected into the club – no debts, no loans, no selling players, buying whoever wenger wanted…

Where would we be now? And how much worse off would we be?

I’m asking because more and more the old ‘we’re superior’, ‘we did it within our means’ arguments don’t really hold much water imo.

As you say in Point 3, it was all going to happen anyway, so why not join them?

Your 2nd point I guess I didn’t express myself clearly. I meant we would have had an owner come in and use his own money to build a stadium, maybe even call it something remotely respectable.

Your 1st point is spot on. I don’t own the club, I know! But this touches on the changing football backdrop, because once we really were part of it. We mattered as fans. The Premier League sold out and now we’re just bums on seats, folk in a queue at the club store. If that’s how it is, as you say, then why should we care about something like acting within our means? The grim reality of that is selling all our best players. And for what? Pride in doing it the right way? When we don’t even matter?!

More and more I just see that as empty PR. Fair enough if we had a fanshare model where the owners’ powers were limited. Then it would be ‘our club’ and we would have something to be proud of. But they’re not. Our club belongs to a couple of billionnaires who just want to make money. It’s all the same – abramovich, mansour, kroenke, usmanov. It’s just that some actually spend their own money to grow the club. Instead of spending nothing and acting like this is morally upright and the others are morally wrong.

The only argument I can see is that it can build the morale of a team to have gone through it the hard way, whereas the others are only there for the money. Well, that’s not how it turned out. Because all our best players left!

As these oil clubs turn little by little into profitable football clubs, all the talk about it being terrible for football and it bankrupting football clubs has proven to be wrong.

The thing I still see as harmful is the increase in spending which affects, wages, transfer prices and ultimately ticket prices. This is the result of money coming from outside football. But my point, with which you agree, is that it was going to happen anyway whatever we did. Now I just think maybe we were stupid not to join them.

@Limpar’s Wand
If building a new stadium was such a bad idea why are so many of the other clubs, Liverpool, Spurs, Everton, West Ham, QPR and even Chelsea etc etc, so keen to follow our example to invest in bigger, better, modern stadiums?

“Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion–when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing–when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot”

The russian pumping 1 billion into the Chelseas locker is a good thing? How is it a good thing? The 1 billion invested by the owner will be shown as loan in Chelseas books. Or a capital account.
And last year the owners investment in Chelsea was converted to equity. But for how long can they do it?

Well, out of curiosity, Romans investment in Chelsea has exceeded the value of the club isnt it? Will he ever get that money back??….

It’s not just the Archway metal site that is being looked at, is that not correct?
The whole area has been surrendered to private development under Boris’ and the current government’s (hah!) enlightened and progressive stewardship, which means that there are disputes on other sites associated with the developers’ masterplans in the area, one of them is even on White Hart Lane itself!

As an Arsenal fan I can happily declare that I gave some of those interviewed in this Guardian article good advice a couple of years ago regarding Tottenham’s plans for their site! I wish them well in their battle. The local M.P. may not be happy with Arsenal fans but perhaps he should have been more focused on informing the local citizens of his intentions over the past few years? Not to worry, everyone knew anyway! The local council and the mayor are facilitating this giant tax-dodging scheme that will destroy without the promise of decent compensation long established family business’ that will have to fight for every penny of any compensation. This narrative and the physical plot could all be a part of some Dickensian yarn.
Arsenal have tried some extra property development, of course they have! It’s London…but they’ve been rejected at planning (a good thing too, the tower proposal was not good!) and to be fair that is all happening several years after they built the actual stadium and fulfilled their other obligations that were demanded of them.

You read the above link and you have to have some respect for how Islington Council did their job with Arsenal. They wrung out some good concessions, with compromises made by all sides, which is how it should be. Of course not everyone was happy with what happened on the site, but the process of sorting out and preparing the site took years and years because it was done the right way. In this context the comments by the Tottenham M.P. Are both revealing and disturbing.

The only real problems with the Arsenal site are with the transport infrastructure and unfortunately those extra costs couldn’t be borne by both the club and council.

I think I really must be a terrible writer, because everyone seems to have missed the point of what I said.

I never said building the Emirates was a bad thing. I said that building it the way we did was a massive handicap. That’s just a fact.

Neither did I say that I love abramovich and his money has been great for football. Frankly he makes me sick. What he’s done has driven up wages, fees and ticket prices at clubs who are trying to compete. That affects me. So obviously I don’t like it.

But my point was that it has happened. With or without us it was always going to happen. Personally I think football clubs should be quasi-public entities and the power of owners whould be severely restricted. But that was never going to happen because our politicians wouldn’t allow it. There’s too much money coming into the country to say no.

In that event, I really do wonder if we would have been better off selling to abramovich in 2004. He would have funded the stadium and bought anyone wenger asked for. And who knows even our ticket prices may be lower as a result.

I don’t like it. I hate it. But I do wonder. I wonder why I should feel proud about the achievement of the arsenal board (a great achievement indeed). In reality what they did is maximise the value of the club, then sell it off to foreign bilionnaires at an enormous profit. As a fan of the club, why is that any better than having an abramovich to bankroll everything?

We’re finally coming out of the hard times, thank goodness. We have some money to compete in the market. Things are great.

But there’s no denying that the pain and struggles of the last decade could have been avoided. And we’d probably have alot more to show for it.

I get it, I supported and still support what we did. It made sense. But looking back I really think we may have been taken for a ride. If we had sold off to a billionnaire who pumped cash into arsenal where would we be now?

I don’t mean to hijack this thread and irritate (or confuse) the regulars! I love this blog because people are generally sane. I realise the effects this massive split across the fanbase over the last few years has had on us. We defend. But I always hated those stupid back and forths that achieve nothing. These so-called ‘factions’ just make me sigh. I like to think this is a place I can put across the honest views of a lifelong arsenal fan and not be treated like I’m Piers Morgan having a go. I’m sorry if I sounded like that, I just care alot. I really hope that someone reads this because I think it’s something arsenal fans should think about if they care.

Please don’t dig yourself in any deeper. We did what we did and as you point it’s all worked out Ok in the end, so our decisions/actions were justified and thankfully we’ll never know what might have been.

1. The purchase order is granted.
2. Spurs turnover is more than arsenals was before building started so financing a project of similar value won’t be problem, CL or not..
3. Of the £400m £80m was procurement and development of the land prior to the stadium being built, this has already been achieved and paid for. So just £320m left to go.
4. And you need to take notice at this point! Levy is a specialist in commercial property development and Joe Lewis is a commercial development speculator.
5. Simply put. The stadium does not need to have such a shallow slant as the emerites, levy knows this because he knows his job.
Spurs will be just fine.

Much of spurs money for the new stadium comes from selling property and land. The club make a healthy profit and financially are one of the best run clubs around. Spurs have been planning a new stadium for quite sometime now. They aren’t taking out giant bank loans to finance the ground. Last I heard they have all the funds available and are taking a £50million no interest loan from ENIC which completes the funding. The governent are ploughing in redevelopment money (25m) because the links to the ground are not great and the area is in need of regeneration as it’s not had any major money spent on.
The CPO for the metal works is the last part of remaining land they need. They’ve been buying land and property all around the ground since about 2002 planning for a future new stadium. That’s as long as they have been stockpillling funds for it. The metal works wanted other costs covered not 25m for the land.
The reason the club are looking for a temporary home to play games is due to the size of the rebuilding work. The pitch before was going to be in the same place then they said they are rotating it.
The club sells out games nearly every week and has a season ticket waiting list of nearly 30k that’s why they are confident of filling it.